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With all of the excitement and fun during the summer of 2026, it’s time to take a break to celebrate the end of the season — especially with the beginning of the fall a few weeks away.

For shoppers, the Labor Day weekend also offers up a chance to save some money online, with Halloween, Black Friday in November and Christmas down the line. With economic worries continuing, retail analysts say shoppers are searching for marked down prices and deals with inflation looming and budgets shrinking.

However, retailers across the internet, like Amazon, Best Buy, Coach Outlet, Dick’s Sporting Goods and others, are boasting deep discounts during Labor Day weekend on all sorts of items, including the latest fashions, footwear, tech, kitchenware, bedroom essentials and more. The holiday isn’t just for cheap mattresses anymore.

In fact, ShopBillboard found the best deals online from different retails from A to Z.

For Labor Day weekend, Abercrombie & Fitch is offering up to 40% off apparel for men and women, while the retailer is also offering an additional 20% off list prices on all clearance items. And, orders over $99 can get for free shipping.

Although Amazon just had Prime Day back in June, the retail giant is having another big sale event with up to 45% off list prices for Labor Day. We found vacuum cleaners on sale for up to 40% off, while Beats by Dre headphones are 45% off retail. Plus, select mattresses are marked down by up to 38% off list price. All weekend long, you’ll find deals on fall essentials, end of summer wears, back-to-school tech and much more.

Although Best Buy has great deals on tech for Labor Day with savings up to 45% off, the retailer has massive discounts on home appliances from brands, like Samsung, LG, Frigidaire, Bosch and others.

Shoppers can save up to 70% off select styles for Labor Day, while Coach Outlet is offering an an extra 20% off in savings.

For Labor Day, Dick’s Sporting Goods has its annual “Epic Shoe Sale,” which offers up to 30% off select sneaker styles and brands, like Adidas, Nike, On Running and others. Additionally, you can take up to 60% off select clearance items. And, some of the other best deals on the Dick’s website right now: You can get up to 20% off select Under Armour gear.

Throughout Labor Day weekend, Everlane is offering up to 70% select summer styles for men and women, while shoppers can get an additional 20% off styles too.

With the upcoming 2026 NFL season, starting on Sept. 9, fans can get up to 50% off NFL jerseys and gear for Labor Day weekend on Fanatics. Gear starts as low as just $1.99 for car decals.

First off, you can get 15% off just for signing up for Gap’s email newsletter. And for Labor Day, shoppers can get up to 60% off clearance items with an addition 50% off select items. Styles start at just $9.

From wrist leaches to living room sectionals, you can save up to 60% from Huckberry for Labor Day. Additionally, you can get a 10% off coupon, if you sign up for the retailer’s newsletter.

It might be time to upgrade your home decor. IKEA has a few key deals sitewide during Labor Day. Throughout the holiday weekend, shoppers can save up to 40% off select HEMNES bathroom furniture and fixtures, as well as up to 20% off select TROFAST system storage solutions.

Sign up for Journeys free rewards program to get $10 off your first purchase $75+ and get free shipping. But for Labor Day, shoppers can get up to 78% select shoe styles, including retail exclusives, like the Vans Old Skool Floral Embroidery Skate Shoe for women.

At Kohl’s, shoppers get get up to whopping 85% off all clearance items, including men’s and women’s clothing, home essentials, small appliances, beauty, toys and others, throughout Labor Day weekend. Plus, shoppers can also get an extra 50% off select items.

At Lee’s Warehouse, you can get up to 50% select styles, along with 20% off if you sign up for the retailer’s email newsletter. Shoppers can get free shipping too with orders over $25.

Expiring at the end of the day on Monday, Sept. 7, shoppers can get up to 70% off sitewide for Labor Day. This includes new arrivals and fall fashion essentials, as well as clothing, shoes, handbags, jewelry, home goods, furniture and other catagories.

With an extra 25% select clearance items, Nordstrom Rack has thousands upon thousands of styles on sale right now, including new markdowns on designer brands like Good American, ASTR the Label, Tommy Hilfiger, Adidas, Cole Haan, Longchamp, Coach and others. There’s also discounts on jewelry too.

Old Navy’s Labor Day sale offers up to 70% off most items sitewide, including up to 40% off new arrivals for fall. It’s a good time to stock up on basics, while shoppers can get an extra 10% off purchases when signing up for text alerts.

Over at PacSun, shoppers can get up to 50% off select items in all categories sitewide. Plus, the retailer is offering free shipping on most orders. Meanwhile, shoppers can also get up to 70% off all clearance items.

QVC’s “End-of-Summer” sale is going on now with discounts on select items for up to 50% list and bundle prices. The sale event even includes an additional marked down of up to 50% off clearances items. At QVC, you can save big on fashion, tech, home essentials, patio items and more.

At REI, it’s time for the retailer’s “Late Summer” sale on men’s and women’s wear, camping essentials, recreation equipment and more with savings up to 50% off list prices. And, if you’re a member of the retailer’s reward program, you can get an additional 20% off one REI Outlet item.

Shop these awesome Labor Day deals with Skechers. Through the holiday weekend, shoppers can save up to 40% on select styles sitewide.

Target has deals on all sorts of items and categories for Labor Day with up to 35% off kitchen items, up to 30% off sports apparel, and up to 20% off organization and storage. Order online and pick it up for free at your nearest Target store location.

At Urban Outfitters, you can take an extra 40% off all sales items and styles when you purchase online.

For activewear, Vuori has a Labor Day sale where shoppers can save up to 40% on select items across categories, such as leggings, joggers, tank tops, jackets, shorts and more.

Sign up for Walmart+ and get an entire year of Paramount+ or Peacock for free, a savings up to $109 per year. You can try the subscription service for as little as $1 for one month or use, or $98 per year. Learn more about Walmart+ here.

Over at Yeti, you can save up to 30% off select drinkware and accessories for Labor Day, including mugs, bottles, backpacks, coolers, jugs and more.

Zara’s Labor Day sale marks down men’s and women’s clothes, shoes and fashions by up to 40% off list prices.

Dolly Parton‘s sister Stella Parton has shared a message in the wake of the country superstar’s death, asking people online to “show more compassion” as her family navigates the loss.

On Friday (Sept. 4), Stella posted a two-slide letter to Instagram marking 10 days since Dolly died at the age of 80 following a brief cancer battle. “We will be okay in time but each of us will grieve in our own personal way,” Stella wrote in the message. “Sadly, because of the way our lives have been in front of the public, we have no choice but to be subjected to incredible pressure and insensitivity from strangers.”

“There is a tremendous amount of AI and endless garbage being posted everyday and it’s been challenging to absorb and or ignore,” Stella continued. “[Dolly] loved her fans and the public in general. That is the reason she chose not to express her opinions on a lot of things like politics, religion and individuals in the public eye. She knew as well as anyone what a negative vortex that could turn into which is nothing but a huge waste of positive energy.”

Stella went on to ask the public to “show more compassion and wisdom” as everyone moves forward. “Use my sister’s life as an example for tolerance and respect toward others,” she added. “It’s not about the most clever comments, fake AI garbage or snarky tweets. At the end of the day or the end of a life, how will you feel about yourself? It’s not about what other individuals you will never meet think of you!”

Dolly died on Aug. 25, only after which it was revealed that the music legend had been battling cancer. She was the fourth-oldest of 12 siblings, while Stella came along sixth. Earlier this year, their brother Coy passed away.

Stella first spoke out about her older sister’s passing two days after the fact, revealing in a letter that Dolly had been willing to let doctors try “experimental drugs” on her in the hopes that their research might help others someday.

“My sister was one of the most generous, thoughtful and kind people I’ve ever known,” Stella wrote at the time. “What the world saw is exactly who she was.”

See Stella’s full letter below.

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Victony scores the strongest week of his young career on the Billboard U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart as the first-week activity of his STARLIFE album impacts the list.

Among the highlights, the set’s single “Slick” retains its No. 2 peak, while eight tracks debut on the ranking, which blends streaming and sales data for its calculations.

In its eighth week on the chart, “Slick” repeats as the runner-up for the third consecutive frame. The track traces its standing to 900,000 official streams in the United States for the Aug. 21-27 tracking week, according to Luminate, a 10% increase from the prior week’s total.

“Slick” gave Victony his third top 10 on U.S. Afrobeats Songs and highest showing on the list. His prior best results were No. 5 peaks for his breakthrough single, “Soweto,” with Rema and Tempoe and featuring Don Toliver, in May 2023 and “Pity This Boy,” a collaboration with ODUMODUBLVCK, in February 2025.

“I’m at a point in my life where my personality is really just shining through the music,” Victony recently told Billboard U.K. “I felt it within me to show people that this is what I’m on and I feel like this body of work completely represents where I am right now.” He added, “If I left out any song from this, it would feel incomplete.”

With the eight STARLIFE debuts, Victony brings his career count to a milestone 25 entries on U.S. Afrobeats Songs. The parent album, meanwhile, debuts at No. 20 on the World Albums chart.

A full rundown of Victony’s placements on this week’s U.S. Afrobeats Songs chart is below. All are debuts except “Slick” and “FRE$H,” with the latter having peaked at No. 14 in June.

No. 2, “Slick”
No. 21, “FRE$H”
No. 26, “2FRESH”
No. 29, “Who This,” with BNXN
No. 34, “STARLIFE,” with Blaqbonez & YKB
No. 40, “Too Lit”
No. 41, “PINO,” with Babyboy AV
No. 47, “Twin,” with FOLA
No. 48, “Armed & Dangerous,” with Young Jonn
No. 50, “FYNE”

Conway Twitty started his music career as a pop hitmaker on the all-format Billboard Hot 100 — his “It’s Only Make Believe” topped the chart in November 1958 — before he found his full voice in country, and the last of his 40 chart-topping titles in the genre came from a songwriter who made a similar format change.

North Carolina-born Sammy Johns earned national recognition when his recording of “Chevy Van” parked at No. 5 on the Hot 100 in 1975, but he followed that by writing his way into the country market. With “Desperado Love,” co-written by Michael, Johns transformed a negative life period into a win. He was about to lose his house, started drinking to numb his depression, then decided to see if there was a song in all of his misery. He felt desperation, brainstormed that into desperado and took off from there.

Twitty recorded the resulting melodic midtempo with co-producers Dee Henry, whom he would marry in 1987, and Ron Treat, and enlisted Vince Gill as a backing vocalist. Released as the first single from Twitty’s Warner Bros. album Fallin’ for You for Years, “Desperado Love” rode onto Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart dated June 7, 1986, and stole the No. 1 ranking three months later, that Sept. 6.

In the process, Twitty set a precedent, becoming the first artist to land 40 No. 1s on Hot Country Songs. To date, he’s outpaced only by George Strait, with 44.

Meanwhile, although “Desperado Love” marked Twitty’s last Hot Country Songs No. 1, his next eight singles all reached the top 10, including three No. 2 hits in 1987: “Fallin for You for Years,” “Julia” and “I Want To Know You Before We Make Love.” He last appeared in the region in 1991 with “I Couldn’t See You Leavin’.”

Born in Mississippi as Harold Jenkins, Twitty died in June 1993 at age 59. He joined the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999 alongside Johnny Bond and Dolly Parton.

The second and final week of evidence in Lil Durk’s trial featured more government witnesses who said the rap star organized a murder — but also a defense case that questioned the credibility of that testimony.  

You’re reading Billboard‘s weekly Lil Durk trial recap, a one-sheet breakdown of everything that happened in the murder-for-hire case over the past week. Stay tuned here each Friday for all the testimony and big events you might have missed.

Durk is charged with ordering his Only the Family (OTF) crew to kill rival rapper Quando Rondo in retaliation for the 2020 killing of his close friend and collaborator King Von. Rondo was shot at a Los Angeles gas station in 2022 and survived, but Rondo’s cousin, known as Lul Pab, was killed in the crossfire.

In the trial that began Aug. 24, prosecutors have built their case around testimony from co-conspirators who have pleaded guilty to the murder and claim Durk was behind the plot. One of the men who shot at Rondo, Kacey “OTF Jam” Hester, took the witness stand in the first week and called the attack “sloppy.”

A second shooter, Keith “Flacka” Jones, testified on Monday (Aug. 31) that Durk promised him $1 million to kill Rondo but never followed through with the payment. Durk’s former assistant, Kavon “Vonnie” Grant, told the jury on Tuesday (Sept. 1) that he coordinated the logistics of the 2022 shooting but kept Durk updated each step of the way. He said Durk was “excited” and “joyful” when news broke of Pab’s death.

“Finally, we got somebody for the revenge of King Von’s death,” said Vonnie of Durk’s reaction, according to trial transcripts reviewed by Billboard.

Durk says he had nothing to do with the shooting, and his lawyers have argued that all the cooperating witnesses are lying to shorten their own prison sentences. Defense attorney Drew Findling went particularly hard during the cross-examination of Vonnie, whom Durk’s team claims was the actual mastermind of the murder.

Findling played numerous recordings of phone calls Vonnie has made from jail, including one in which he said that the trial testimony would be his “time to shine” and “perform,” as well as others where he’s heard discussing plans to make money selling his story to a TV show.

“You were willing to sacrifice people, whether it’s their lives or whether it’s their freedom, so you can walk away. Is that correct?” Findling asked Vonnie.

Vonnie replied “no” to that question, and then asked Findling himself, “Who wouldn’t want to get out of jail?”

“I don’t know,” responded Findling. “Maybe somebody that … successfully organized the unintentional assassination of a young man from Savannah whose mom weeps his loss because of you. Maybe that is a reason why you shouldn’t get on your Nikes and bolt out of here. Maybe that is a good reason.”

Prosecutors rested their case in the morning on Thursday (Sept. 3). Durk’s team then called witnesses of their own, many of whom said the cooperators are not to be believed. Shekema Springfield, who claims she knew Vonnie well, testified, “He’s a liar and a thief.” Similarly, OTF Jam’s ex-girlfriend told the jury, “He’s not truthful at all. He’s a manipulator.”

The defense also spent some time on Thursday calling witnesses to rebut the prosecution’s theory that Durk telegraphed the Rondo murder plot in his music. Jurors have heard multiple Durk lyrics throughout the trial, including a portion of his 2022 hit “Ahhh Ha:” “Don’t respond to s–t with Von/ I’m like, ‘f–k it, you trippin’, go get your gun’/ They droppin’ locations, I’m gettin’ it done/ F–k tweetin’, we slidin’, the feds are comin’.”

Durk’s attorneys have argued that these lyrics were not literal, but instead were artistic expression tailored for commercial success. Sanchay Jain, a former senior vp of marketing at Durk’s label Alamo Records, bolstered this argument in his testimony.

“Violence sells in entertainment,” said Jain. “The biggest video game right now, Grand Theft Auto, promotes violence. The biggest movie of the summer is The Odyssey. It promotes violence.”

Durk’s longtime recording engineer, Justin Gibson, testified that the rapper made “Ahhh Ha” in particular to “capitalize off the situation” with Von. The track spent 11 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 18.

“The people on social media really wanted him to have a response, and he just figured because of the momentum he had from other songs and the fact that the label wanted him to put up numbers, that he ought to say something about it and it would get a good reaction,” said Gibson.

Durk’s lawyers rested their case Thursday. The jury is set to return on Tuesday (Sept. 8) for closing arguments, and then they will begin to deliberate. Durk is charged with numerous counts including conspiracy, stalking and murder-for-hire, and he faces up to life in prison if convicted.  

Beyoncé celebrates her 45th birthday (Sept. 4) with news of her latest No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult R&B Airplay chart, “Morning Dew (Donk),” which leads the list dated Sept. 12.

The single ascends from No. 3 to secure its status as the most-played song on panel-contributing adult R&B radio stations in the United States for the Aug. 28-Sept. 3 tracking week, according to Luminate.

“Morning Dew,” released and promoted through Parkwood/Columbia, secures Beyoncé her fourth Adult R&B Airplay No. 1. It follows “Love on Top,” which reigned for seven weeks in 2012 and a pair of 2022 champs: “Break My Soul,” a two-week leader and “Make Me Say It Again Girl,” a collaboration with Ronald Isley and the Isley Brothers that ruled for five weeks.

Notably, “Morning Dew” captures the summit in its sixth week on the chart, passing “Make Me Say It Again Girl” for the fastest rise to No. 1 among Beyoncé’s chart-toppers. The latter required seven weeks to reach the top slot.

“Morning Dew,” a surprise release that dropped July 4, became Beyoncé’s 32nd solo career entry on Adult R&B Airplay and 10th top 10. Before its official release, the single was long the speculation of Beyhive lore. The song was reportedly originally recorded in 2013 around the singer’s Beyoncé album era; a snippet leaked in 2021 before a fuller version made its way online two years later, even sparking TikTok trends.

Upon its official release, “Morning Dew” was announced as a preview of the 20th anniversary edition of her album B’Day, which arrived today via retail and streaming services. The expanded set, comprising 31 tracks, features official releases of collaborations with Pharrell Williams, Maluma and Selena. The original B’Day, released in 2006, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and launched Beyoncé’s biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit, the No. 1 smash “Irreplaceable,” as well as other successes in “Beautiful Liar,” with Shakira (No. 3), “Deja Vu,” feat. Jay-Z (No. 4) and “Ring the Alarm” (No. 11).

Elsewhere, “Morning Dew” climbs 8-7 on the Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart and jumps 5-3 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart, which combines audience totals from adult and mainstream R&B/hip-hop stations. On the latter, thanks to its strength at both contributor formats, the song reached 13.8 million audience impressions in the tracking week, up 18% from the prior week and secures the weekly Greatest Gainer award for the largest audience gain.

When Jason Aldean performed at the Academy of Country Music Awards in Frisco, Texas, on May 16, 2024, his acoustic version of “Should’ve Been a Cowboy” paid homage to the late Toby Keith.

But while he was there, Aldean got an additional opportunity to celebrate another country legend. He received a fresh demo of a new song written by two band members, bassist Tully Kennedy and guitarist Kurt Allison, and he quickly recognized the sound that Allison had created with a Fender Rhodes electric piano.

“It was a tip of the hat to Ronnie Milsap,” Aldean remembers. “I knew immediately – one listen – that we were going to cut it, and it was going to make the record.”

“Anytime Soon,” released by Broken Bow to country radio on Aug. 2 via PlayMPE, uses a keyboard tone akin to Milsap’s “Stranger in My House,” blended with classic rock sounds that embody Tom Petty and Journey. It was created with Aldean’s musical tastes in mind, as well as his penchant for stories about guys trying to pick themselves up.

“There are two things that never go out of style, man: falling in love and relationships falling apart,” Aldean says. “For whatever reason, I’ve always leaned into the latter.”

Kennedy and Allison were writing with John Edwards (“How Far Does a Goodbye Go,” “Whiskey Drink”) a few weeks before the ACMs at BMG Music on Nashville’s Music Row when they found the musical thread that became “Anytime Soon.” They’d already written another song and thought they were done for the day, but Kennedy and Edwards started a rough-edged chord progression in a minor key. It felt substantial, so Allison, who was already packing up to leave, began unpacking. They didn’t quite know where the song was headed.

“We didn’t have a hook,” Kennedy recalls. “With each line we wrote of the chorus, I was getting more nervous. I’m like, ‘I don’t know what we’re writing to,’ which never happens. You just don’t do that because you don’t know where to land. “

The song developed a drinking theme fairly quickly, with the protagonist downing a couple shots at a time, hoping to erase a woman from his memory. In the last half of the chorus – with the writers still uncertain what lie ahead – the guy’s internal war became clearer, as he tries to “fight off” “a battle that I’m bound to lose.”

“That’s Aldean 101,” Allison says. “He’s never like, ‘Hey, I’m a super-awesome guy.’ It’s always like, ‘Hey, I got some faults, and I’ve got some struggles, but that’s on me.’”

The hook finally showed itself after that, as they recognized the guy’s enemy is well-supplied: “They ain’t runnin’ out of whiskey anytime soon.” It was then that they contemplated a title. “Running Out of Whiskey” sounds decent, but it’s the opposite of the song’s meaning. “That’s not cool,” Kennedy says.

Plus, they’d previously written “Whiskey Drink,” and Aldean had had a hit with “Drowns the Whiskey.” “Anytime Soon” seemed the better option. “That,” Kennedy says, “feels great.”

They wrapped after one verse and chorus, deciding to wait until they could finish it with John Morgan. So roughly a week later, all four writers assembled at BMG and brought up the work tape, wondering if it would still resonate. “You come back, and it’s better than you even remember,” Allison says. “We were excited to finish.”

One of the first things they addressed, at the start of the second verse, was a location. The existing lyrics suggested a bar but could still be interpreted as a guy drinking alone.“We try to be as vague as we can while still giving details about the storyline,” Morgan says. “There’s definitely drinking references in the first verse. [It] doesn’t really put you in a certain place.”

They launched verse two with the guy “hittin’ this hole in the wall” and staying “all the way to last call,” making the dive bar images stronger. But they still weren’t definitive. “We didn’t want to get overly specific with some of those words,” Allison says. “Like ‘hole in the wall.’ Does that mean ‘dive bar’? Does it mean, ‘Hey, I’m going through a struggle and I put my fist through the wall at the house’?”

They finished the song by repurposing a pre-chorus from the first verse as a bridge, then made a demo that approximated an Aldean recording. Given Kennedy and Allison’s musical history, that’s not particularly difficult. “They’ve been playing music with me for 25 years,” Aldean says. “They know what I will and won’t say, what I think is cool and what’s not cool.”

Aldean tends to sing the verses in his songs loosely, a bit like a conversation with a musical soundtrack behind it, and Morgan delivered the demo vocals with that in mind. “One of the references that we pulled from, phrasing-wise, was Don Henley and ‘Boys of Summer,’” Morgan recalls. “Some of those verses, he’s talking more than singing… It was [meeting] in the middle on doing the Henley thing, being in the measure, but kind of being lazy about it.”

The demo provided a terrific roadmap when the band recorded the master version of “Anytime Soon” with producer Michael Knox (Montgomery Gentry, Thomas Rhett) at Nashville’s Treasure Isle. They needed just three takes to record it; in fact, session pianist Tony Harrell and recording engineer Peter Coleman (Blondie, The Knack) may have devoted more time to developing the “Stranger in My House” keyboard tone than the band needed to play it.

“Luckily, Peter Coleman knew how to make that thing sound authentic,” Knox notes. “It wasn’t a plug-in. It was a true Wurlitzer sitting in the back of the studio that they pulled out and had to dust off and warm up [to] get it done right.”

Allison and Adam Shoenfeld traded guitar parts, though Allison took the primary solo. Drummer Rich Redman provided a steady backbeat, and acoustic guitarist Danny Rader’s almost-inaudible rhythms brighten the track just a hair. Steel player Mike Johnson added enough twang to keep the Milsap-meets-Petty sonics in a country lane.

Johnson, says Knox, “can make a rock song sound like a country song, and you don’t know why you think it’s a country song.”

Aldean knew “Anytime Soon” inside out before he cut the final vocal and gave Knox six takes. “This one,” Aldean says, “was pretty much in the wheelhouse.”

Aldean slid it into his live set when his 2026 concert schedule launched Jan. 15 at Simmons Bank Arena in North Little Rock, Ark. The recorded version debuted on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart dated Aug. 22 at No. 55. Given that his last 25 radio-promoted solo releases have hit the top 10, with 18 going to No. 1, it’s a good bet that “Anytime Soon” is beginning a ride that won’t end … anytime soon.

“I remember when I was a young guy,” Aldean says. “Now I’m trying to hang in there with all the young guys. I’m just glad that we’re still putting out stuff that seems to be connecting with people out there. That’s what it’s all about.”

Singer-songwriter Belles and the late Dolly Parton’s “Son of Jolene” debuts at No. 51 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart (dated Sept. 12). The song drew 1.3 million in airplay audience, up 68% week over week, Aug. 28-Sept. 3, according to Luminate.

Belles, who earns her first entry on the chart, cowrote the song with Tyler Bank and Dan Harrison as a sequel to Parton’s 1974 Hot Country Songs No. 1 classic, “Jolene.” The new song made its way to Parton through longtime producer Kent Wells, and the legend liked the concept enough to add her vocals.

“Son of Jolene” stands as Parton’s last new recording released during her lifetime.

“I don’t even know how to say ‘thank you’,” Belles said in a video posted to Instagram after Parton died Aug. 25. “I was just a girl from Nebraska growing up idolizing Dolly and I never imagined moving to Nashville that I would get to meet her, much less have this song with her. She just took a chance on me. She really made me believe in myself a lot more. I’m just very grateful.”

Ex-cellent

As Luke Combs’ “Be by You” tops Country Airplay for a third week (32.8 million, up 1%), Lauren Alaina’s “All My Exes,” featuring Chase Matthew, rises a spot to No. 10 (17 million, up 3%). Alaina adds her fourth top 10 and Matthew, his third.

Notably, three of Alaina’s top 10s are collaborations — fitting on a chart where team-ups are scarce but tend to overperform once they catch on. “All My Exes” joins her three one-week No. 1s: HARDY’s “One Beer,” on which she and Devin Dawson are featured (December 2020); Kane Brown’s “What Ifs,” another feature (October 2017); and her own “Road Less Traveled” (April 2017).

Matthew previously visited the top 10 with “Darlin’,” a three-week No. 1 last November, and “Love You Again,” his chart debut that reached No. 9 in 2024.

Alaina cowrote “All My Exes” with Jimmie Gutch, Ben Johnson and Whitney Phillips, born of an argument with a former partner. “I was 22, 23, living in Nashville and dating other country music artists and dating other people in the business, and comedians,” she explained in Billboard’s Makin’ Tracks last September. “All the wrong people, basically.”

All Billboard charts dated Sept. 12 will update Wednesday, Sept. 9, on Billboard.com.

Someone has given NCT 127 notepads. The five bandmates are parked along one side of a wide conference room table, each with hotel stationery and a pen sitting in front of them. It immediately feels like a mistake. When not reflecting on what’s changed for the group in the decade since debut — or heckling each other for misspeaking like they’re still bratty kids living on top of each other in dorms — they’re hunched over, doodling.

Just over 10 years ago, the world was introduced to NCT’s first fixed subgroup (NCT DREAM, WayV and NCT WISH would soon follow) as teenagers getting aggro in science class. In real life, that rowdy energy has dispersed into a mellower campus crush vibe — if you squint, the drawing could almost be confused for diligent note-taking — but the septet’s seventh studio album, Blingy, is just as loud as ever. “I wanted to make a statement,” Chicago native Johnny says: “NCT 127 is back.”

K-pop’s noisiest mavericks have had a relatively quiet couple of years. In 2024, group leader Taeyong enlisted in the South Korean military for compulsory service; deep-voiced, dimpled Jaehyun was next to go. By the end of 2025, they were almost done, while two more — Doyoung and Jungwoo — cycled in, leaving five members (a head count rounded out by Johnny, Yuta and Haechan) to shoulder the weight of this comeback.

When they sit down with Billboard, the rollout is still in progress. Across the table, Taeyong is making scribbles that look plucked straight out of the mind of Bart Simpson: a disembodied robot head; messy stars; a stick-figure animal being beamed up by a UFO; a bird-man with abs and pecs — and, in a nod to Blingy’s raucous lead single, “Piñata,” live debuted at KCON LA the previous Friday (Aug. 14), a donkey with stubby little legs.

A few days later, the headlining set is still on their minds. There’s good reason for it to be: “It’s one of the hardest performances we’d ever had to get ready for,” Johnny says. To offset lineup changes, the guys ultimately had to redistribute lines for nearly every song on the setlist.

This is to say nothing of all the work that went into Blingy’s title track, which was only briefly teased at KCON. Taeyong, who co-created its choreo, recalls the first “full power” run-through: “I wasn’t even dripping sweat. I was just soaked,” he says. “Like some exercise…”

“CrossFit,” Johnny says, then spells out: “H-I-I-T.”

“A bit like CrossFit,” Taeyong laughs. “Maybe even harder.”

While the leader had proposed a few cuts, his teammates rejected them outright. “I felt it then,” Taeyong says. “The members really don’t change when it comes to ambition about performance and being uncompromising with what we show. We all have this desire.” He chuckles to himself: “I have it a bit less. But with everyone’s help, I was able to do it, too.”

Now in his thirties, Taeyong acts like his stamina has fallen off a cliff, but his post-military activities suggest otherwise: within six months of discharging, he released his debut solo studio album WYLD. Granted, it was “easier to make music in the military,” he admits. He had a hand in every track on his own project — but after returning to his group, Taeyong says he barely has time to listen to music, let alone produce it.

Jaehyun took a brief vacation before throwing himself into album preparations. He didn’t have much difficulty settling back in — that is, if his dry witticisms are to be believed. “Music is my life,” he says, completely straight-faced. “Always music. Today music, tomorrow music.”

And a lot was riding on that music. So, when it came time to pick the centerpiece for this era, there was a three-way split: management liked “Piñata” so much they tried to tip the scales in its favor; A&R championed the chest-beating “Legacy”; the members, however, threw their weight behind the impossible-to-ignore “Blingy.”

“It’s a song that gets your attention,” Johnny says. “I wanted people to stop and listen if they were walking by.”

Turning heads is far from a new goal for them. To this day, the title track from NCT 127’s best-selling album Sticker (and its cacophonous flute) is subject to hot debate: “It’s one of those songs where either you hate it, or you love it,” Johnny says. “We try to make people who hate it love it, but sometimes you don’t. We kinda just started to understand that.”

It’s this brash, unselfconscious style — which they call “Neo” — that’s so successful at bringing fans into the fold, he argues: “Because they are like, ‘What the heck is this?’” Jaehyun adds: “From the start, we had to be experimental.” And it’s grown into a calling card.

But it would be a mistake to chalk NCT 127’s music up to just noise. Despite the project’s on-the-nose title, Blingy contains multitudes: pinballing hip-hop banger “IKR” conducts its chaos with unexpected minimalism (they recorded early in the day for a morning rasp); the lightweight “Day After Day” has magical drum-n-bass swerves.

“It raises the question,” Johnny asks, holding this mixed bag up against the singularity of “Sticker,” “What is Neo?” For ultra-capable vocalist Haechan, deep cut “Mad Dog” is the pinnacle of that sound. It’s acidic and abrasive; crucially, the bridge hits like a melodic chaser to its squeaky dubstep drop, making the contrast all the more delicious.

Perhaps that’s why, despite the group’s sonic identity having been discussed to death — “I don’t really know what Neo is anymore,” Yuta huffs a laugh from beneath his black fringe — Taeyong sums it up rather easily: “There is no Neo song,” he says. “The members’ voices are Neo.”

With Doyoung and Jungwoo gone, Blingy tends to tread lighter on the crazy vocals. (Though not completely: “Piñata,” for one, flexes Yuta’s rock chops.) Yet as a happy surprise for fans — and their fellow members — the pair of enlisted singers show up on “127 Million Miles,” a heartfelt thank you to the many faces in the crowd and beyond. Taeyong explains of the song: “Even if we’re that far apart, we’re still able to be together.”

In July, “Did you miss us?” billboards went up across two major U.S. cities, leading fans to believe that North American dates would be added to NCT 127’s upcoming REDLINE tour. Johnny took it upon himself to personally dispel the rumors. “I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up,” he says with a small grimace. “I felt like that would make it worse.”

“There was a big picture,” he hand-waves. “But let’s not get into it.”

For the time being, the guys will “reach out as much as possible,” though Johnny adds that another tour is “definitely planned” for next year. “When all of the members are able to work together [in 2027], we’ll definitely try to make another album right away,” he says. What lies beyond is up in the air. “2028.. we’ll try, but we don’t know. Let’s just get through 2027.”

This year, meanwhile, finds them in flux. With the sprawling NCT clan turning a decade old, most of the members’ contracts were up for renewal; when April rolled around, SM Entertainment golden boy Mark Lee became the first to not move forward with the company — or the band.

Johnny emphasizes how long the whole process took in reality. Nothing was done in haste. “The decisions that everybody made weren’t made in a few months,” he says. “It really did take a lot of time and effort and conversation with each other to come upon the conclusion we came upon.”

They kicked off discussions over two years ago, before members began to enlist. “At the beginning, before I went to the military, we all got together and talked about it,” Taeyong says. “I guess each of us had a direction we were thinking about and we each wanted different things, so I think it was unavoidable that we took a longer time to think about it.”

“Ultimately, I can’t say that everyone is completely satisfied,” he concedes, while also effectively putting a lid on the conversation: “But I think we are able to work in a better environment than before.”

With this new seniority came greater creative control. Taeyong fiddles with his phone, looking for an unchosen demo version of an album track. It’s a move not without its objections. “Don’t play it,” Johnny cringes. “Ugh!” Yuta echoes: “What if she likes it too much?” This alternative melody — by the members’ own estimations — wasn’t up to par, so it didn’t go to press. “Hated [this] other version,” Johnny says. “Just gonna say that.”

Do they often find themselves having differences of opinion with their A&R team now? “Always,” Yuta nods.

Taeyong agrees: “I think we have more complaints after renegotiating.” The rest of the members crack up, but Yuta has an amendment to make. “Only him,” he says, poking a thumb at Taeyong. Was he not as forthcoming with his thoughts in the past? “Oh, I complained a lot before,” Taeyong smirks. “And now I’m just complaining even more.”

But they also recognize they’re in good hands for the most part. “We tell the company our opinion,” Haechan says, “[and] resolve it by talking it through. When it comes to songs, the A&R team comes to us with a certain vision, so we keep that in mind as we’re thinking about the album.”

Although Taeyong can be admittedly hard to budge, he’s not closed off to outside information, either. He doesn’t confuse ego for maturity. After SM Entertainment acquired music publisher KRM, “I came to learn some things,” he says. “At first, I had a lot of complaints about there being so many foreign producers in the credits [of our albums].”

But time has shifted his perspective on the matter. “Just because they’re foreign producers doesn’t mean they’re making songs from a place of ignorance,” he says. “These individuals have come over to Korea and are doing song camps. They’re learning about Korean culture and K-pop’s origins, and they know more than I expected. It’s within these song camps where their culture and our culture come together.”

His worries about the K-pop industry divesting itself from the “K” weren’t unfounded. But whereas some K-pop artists seem to chase after the U.S. pop airwaves, NCT 127 has always utilized creative partnerships between (often Black American) producers from the West — Dem Jointz, Patrick “J.Que” Smith, Harvey Mason Jr. — and SM’s genius home team to enhance their sound rather than strip it of complexity.

Johnny offers up a metaphor. “Do you know what an MBTI is?” he asks. “It’s an easy way to explain who you are. But does that define you? I would say no.” The eldest isn’t too hung up on the particulars: “You can label us however you want,” he says. “But, in the end, we kind of made a genre.”

And that’s something they can call all their own.

Additional translation provided by Gene Kim.